Saturday, August 14, 2004

OutNBCed

Fox? Yes, they are wretched beyond our homely powers of description. Consider it a mercy, though, that they are transparently wretched beyond our homely powers of description.

Or is it a mercy, when the big loud ugly stalking-horse of Fox distracts our attention from what the bland, benign, "impartial" competition is getting away with? From Nikki Finke in the L.A. Weekly, courtesy of Zemblan patriot B.K.:

Everybody complains about Fox — but who dares to tell how NBC news programs are selling the public on the war in Iraq in its network and cable stations because parent company General Electric is expected to have up to $3 billion in contracts in that country by 2006? And how NBC news programs are selling the public on the war on terrorism because G.E. is an industry leader in developing advanced technologies to meet the world’s increasing security needs. And how NBC news programs are also selling the public on the re-election of GWB since the Bush administration’s warmongering and scarifying have been good for G.E.’s bottom line.

It’s not just the 24/7 bashing of Kerry in unison by MSNBC hosts that’s so unethical. It’s that clapping wildly behind the prez on Tuesday inside the Pensacola Civic Center, where Bush spoke to supporters, was none other than current MSNBC talk show host Joe Scarborough. That’s allowed by the network, yet NBC recently refused to give political documentary filmmaker Robert Greenwald a one-minute clip of W’s inarticulate interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press.

You may recall that moment where our commander in chief tried to defend his decision to attack Iraq, but lapsed into incoherence. NBC refused to give up the clip to Greenwald, explaining to his agent that it’s “not very flattering to the president” and that the network wished to remain “neutral.” (Relying on the fair-use doctrine, Greenwald included the clip anyway in the upcoming theatrical release of his documentary, Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, even though it exposes the film to a potential copyright-infringement lawsuit.)

That same phony baloney about nonpartisanship was given by the Walt Disney Co. [corporate parent of ABC -- S.] to explain its boneheaded decision not to distribute Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 ($113 mil in box office and still climbing, as compared to flops like The Alamo, Hidalgo, Around the World in 80 Days and King Arthur the studio did release). Yet Eisner’s company enjoys a wealth of perks from Bush and bro’, from Homeland Security’s March 2003 granting of a no-fly zone over Disney World, to tax breaks for its theme parks and hotels in Florida, where Br’er Jeb just happens to be governor.

TV in America created the most coherent reality distortion field that I've ever seen. Therein is the problem: People who vote watch TV, and they are hallucinating like a sonofabitch. Basically, what we have in this country is government by hallucinating mob.

And of course there's this:

Most libertarians are worried about government but not worried about business. I think we need to be worrying about business in exactly the same way we are worrying about government.